A Broom at the Masthead (The Drowned Books Book 1) (33 page)

"Dear,"
he said gently, "I have not seen that poor man's body, and nor is it
fitting that I should do so. But Doctor Willis can. And will. He believes me as
innocent as you do, Thomazine. And I imagine that by the end of this week, he
will have absolute, irrefutable evidence that I did not harm a hair on that
man's head, and he will be more than willing to make free of it. And then let
us see what the gossips make of
that.
"

"You
are exonerated?"

"I
am
absolutely
exonerated, my tibber. And by the end of this week it will
be public knowledge. As will be the information that some ne'er-do-well is
slandering my -
our
- good name, for reasons of their own." He
kissed her, absently, with the result that he almost missed her mouth and
kissed the tip of her nose instead. (Or perhaps he meant to, though it would be
a most uncharacteristically explicit public display of tenderness, in the
street, to the shock and dismay of those respectable passers-by who frequented
this part of Aldgate. Perhaps he was, truly, so happy that he did not mind.)

"What
do you mean to do?"

"What
I should have done a month ago. I am going to lay the whole matter in the hands
of the authorities, love."

"But
-"

"Thomazine."
He kissed her again, with more intent, this time. "We have done enough. I
will put you in no further harm's way. I will call at the Justice's house on my
way - um - about my business, and I would like it above all things were you to
go
home
. And bar the door, I think. I think I should prefer it, if neither you
nor the Widow should be abroad without - without me, or without another."

"You
are afraid?" And suddenly she was, because he had that purposeful look
about him, and she did not know what he had sighted on, only that he feared a
thing that she could not see.

"I
am." And that was an admission she had never heard before, from her
indefatigable darling. "For Zee - what if this is deliberate, my love? We
have thought that this was no more than some clapper-tongued rogue seeking to
attach my name to a murder, for their own nefarious ends." He gave her a
faint, unconvincing smile. "What if the rogue and the murderer are one and
the same?"

And
on that unreassuringly note, he left her standing at their front door.

59

He
was over-reacting.

He
was furious. He was terrified.

He
was as jumpy as a mouse in a room full of cats.

He
had made the local Justice aware, and the local Justice had smiled at him and
all but patted his head and sent him about his business, for Russell had only
told him the half of it. Had not mentioned that he
was
an intelligencer,
he didn't think that would be helpful.

He
thought, though, that of all people Prince Rupert might be interested. He had
detected a glimmer of sympathy in that ragged ageing raven that surprised him:
like himself, a man with a past of blood and fire, chained to a perch of
respectability by circumstance.

Although
he had something of a wait before Rupert was in any fit state to receive
company.

"You
have news?" he said, and scratched under his wig, squinting a little in
the sunlight that gleamed on his fantastic brocade dressing-gown, and on the
fresh pad of brown and yellow-stained linen that poked from under his curls.

"I
have," Russell said smugly, smoothing his own - very much his own - hair
behind his ears. "Dr Willis is presently investigating the murder of a
night-watchman at the Wapping docks."

Rupert
scowled as if his head hurt - which, given the smell of stale brandy that hung
about him, as well as the rancid linen pad, it probably did. "'S he want
to do a daft thing like that for?"

"I
posited it as a matter of some - interest."

"Oh?
He has an interest in murders? Thought such matters were best left to the
Justices, m'self." He stifled a yawn. "Major Russell, is there a
point to this? Given what they say of you, sir, I’d have thought you’d care to
give the subject a wide berth."

"It
does not trouble you?"

"If
I were to bar access to my company for every man with the whiff of blood on his
hands, I'd be damnable lonely. The idea of a murder -" he shrugged,
"aye, well. Add another notch to the tally, major. How many men
did
you
kill in the wars?"

"Too
many for my tastes," Russell said. "Nor do I duel."

"Aye?
Not what I hear. Heard you were very hot to engage, at a recent supper, till
Wilmot stopped you. Pity, for it would have been a pretty sight, you taking on
my lord Talbot. You'd have whipped him, of course, and he'd have cried like a
puppy for weeks over it. And then he'd have probably paid someone to cut your
throat a month later. No, sir, ‘tis not the deaths that intrigue me. Life’s
cheap, sir, you know that as well as I. You could have murdered half the whores
in the City, for aught I would care, so long as you left the clean ones – “ he
grinned ruefully, “imagine the outcry, an you did not?" He took his wig
off and dropped it on the little table beside him with a grimace. "Ah,
damme but that thing makes my head ache. To the Devil with fashion, I say. For
now. You're too much the old Roundhead to turn up your nose at a man for his
not keeping fashion, in his own chambers."

"Indeed,"
Russell said dryly.

"No,
major, if you
did
put an end to the man, I'd be sure you'd a reason for
it. Damme, he was only a bloody watchman, what’s the fuss? No. What interests
me, sir, is why you set light to the dockside?"

"Didn't,"
he said. "But someone wants to make it look like I did."

And
then he had Rupert's attention, and he had it hard enough to make the Prince
forget his hurts and sit forward in his chair, interrupting occasionally to ask
questions, or merely to whistle long and low.

"D'ye
say
so?"

"I
do. And so does Willis."

"For
why
, though?"

He
set his shoulders. (Hated this, hated saying it, hated that step out into the
dark -) "Because I have been an intelligencer against the Dutch for the
last - what - five years, my lord. It is not widely known."

Rupert
laughed, and suddenly looked young again. "Be a damn' poor intelligencer
if every man knew you were at it, major."

"Indeed.
Well. It is now considerably more widely known than it was, sir, due to the
public scrutiny of these incidents. Which was, I fear, the intent."

"And
you reckon, what? Your man came across persons unknown up to no good in the
warehouses and strangled him to stop him raising the alarm?"

Russell
paused. "No, sir. I think that is how he
wishes
it to seem. The
watchman was strangled with my hair ribbon - a distinctive thing, a wedding
favour of my wife's, that she had taken pains to embroider with sprigs of
rosemary, and I begin to wonder that someone chose the weapon because it was
mine, rather than for expediency. And as an aside, my lord, I should like it
back, if such a thing were possible?"

"Even
though it were a murder weapon, major? 'Odsblood, but you're a cold fish!"

"Love
is stronger than death," he said fiercely, and since he did not expect
Rupert to understand, was not disappointed. "I lost it, I can tell you the
very night I lost it, it was at a supper party where half the Court was there
and any one of them could have picked it up and marked it as mine, if they were
so minded. So yes – I begin to believe that it is a man in your nephew’s
service who moves against me, which – it troubles me, sir, for I can only think
I am marked for a thing I am not. What I am, my lord, is a retired supply
officer, a husband, and a -a- I pray God, a father, soon. I am not an
intriguer. Not any more.”

Rupert
blinked those crow-black eyes, slowly. “Major Russell,” he said blandly, “are
you suggesting that
I
might be in a position to direct my nephew’s gaze
elsewhere? Do you presume so much, sir?”

 And
Russell blinked back at him, equally blandly, thanking God for that cicatrice
on his cheek that made it perfectly possible to look inscrutable whilst his
guts were in a quaking knot. “I, my lord? I suggest no such thing. I – muse. I
wonder. If someone attaches more importance to me than I merit. I was an
intelligencer. I have been removed from that post, due to this vicious gossip.
I am, if you would have it so, harmless. Worthless, almost –“ and he could not
help the smile, “save to my wife. I mean to do no more than return to
Buckinghamshire, and live in quiet seclusion –“ well, all right, he was perhaps
laying it on too heavily, so he stopped, and cocked his head brightly, looking
at the spot where Rupert’s eyebrows met. “You might, perhaps, be in a position
to pass on that information, though. Into an appropriate ear?”

“My
lord Downing?” Rupert suggested.

There
was a long pause. That bloody French clock was still ticking brightly into the
silence, and Russell could willingly have thrown the damnable thing into the
fire. Tinkling the quarter-hour, and somewhere in the house a woman was singing
about her work. He wanted to look away., and he would not. “I think I am no
friend to Sir George,” he said eventually, because he must say
something
.
“I –“

“Wonder
if perhaps someone has been passing on information to Sir George already,” the
Prince said, reaching out and stroking the rim of his coffee-cup with a delicate
forefinger. “I believe that my lord Downing is hot for the war, Major Russell.
Now tell me. Are you?”

He
did not know how to answer that, and so he did not. “I am not a traitor, sir.”

“Which
is not the question I asked you. But is an answer. You think, then, that
someone seeks to discredit you with George Downing, who may be my nephew’s
spymaster, but is not
your
master? Interesting.”

“I
– yes. Possibly. I don’t – I don’t know, in all truth. I do not think Master
Jephcott was strangled because he saw too much. I think the intent was always
to kill him. Someone. It." And suddenly it was too hot in that airy room,
and his cheek was locking up on him again, his voice starting to slur now,
because this was not a thing he had ever said aloud, either. "It mirrors
my sister's death, d'you see? She was done to death in a fire. At ho- at Four
Ashes. And that bloody fool Charles Fairmantle had made this common currency,
when I first came back to Court after some time in – in my service
elsewhere."

"In
Europe?" Rupert said, and Russell nodded abruptly.

"Antwerp.
To be specific. So I had not known of her death until - then. He is - he was -
my neighbour, in Buckinghamshire. And an utter bloody fool. If brains were
gunpowder, that rattle-brain would not have sufficient to blow his hat
off." He shuddered. "Which is unkind in me. He is a harmless ninny,
and he has been nothing but kindness itself to Thomazine and I, throughout this
time. I just wish he would mind his own business, and not look on every man's
misfortune as his own personal gossip-mill...Well. He did not mean harm, but he
did harm. Every man and his dog knows my personal affairs. And someone has made
use of that information, to oust me as a, an -"

"Agent,"
Rupert finished, rather kindly, and inclined his head.

"There
was not a mark on my
Persephone
, who is known to deal with the Dutch
East India Company. But the
Ariadne
will be out of the water for the
better part of six months till they make her good again, and that's before they
can even start fitting her out for her next voyage. That's a lot of trade to
lose for
our
East Indiamen, for she'll lose the fair weather, and I
doubt she'll leave Wapping till next spring, once the autumn gales set in. I am
not always a soldier, sir. I find commerce endlessly fascinating: God willing,
there will be peace in my lifetime, and I would have a trade to follow when
there is no more need for soldiers."

"Intelligencing
is a trade, Major Russell," Rupert said, and blinked.

"Surely.
And no trade for a gentleman with a wife and a family."

"Ah?
I was under the impression that your courtship was very much the blind for your
intelligencing, sir. I liked to think that the lovely Thomazine had been much
taken with - now, what was it, that Killigrew was squawking about so horribly -
a lacquer box, was it? From China?"

Russell
closed his mouth with a snap. He had known all along, the smooth swine.
"Japan. Brought her a little jade hare - now that's precious - too."

"Ah.
Now this -" Rupert stroked the figured silk of his dressing-gown with a
tender hand, "this is from China. Pretty trinket, no? Remind me, next time
I get sight of any, I'll send her a length."

Yes,
Russell rather thought he would as well, the horny old goat, and narrowed his eyes
a little.

"D'you
want to take it up again?" Rupert said, and for a minute Russell thought
he meant the box, or the dressing-gown, and said nothing. "Do you want
your post back, major? Though, possibly, not working for Master Killigrew, this
time, but direct to the Admiralty. In an unofficial capacity, you understand.
As an administrator, or similar. You know the trick. You've fiddled enough
books in your time to know the way of it."